Comments

Susannah York’s earliest work thankfully survives – a 1959 television production of Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” opposite a pre-Bond Sean Connery, and her cinematic debut as the daughter of Alec Guinness in the classic war drama, “Tunes of Glory” (1960).

Free-spirited and unreserved, she had no trouble at all courting controversy in some of the film roles she went on to play, gaining special notoriety in the lesbian drama “The Killing of Sister George*” (1968). A few years later, she and Elizabeth Taylor traveled similar territory with “*X, Y and Zee” (1972). I personally recall seeing her on the big screen at seven years of age as the daughter of Sir Thomas More in “A Man for all Seasons,” and several years later in more mainstream movies like “Battle of Britain” and “Gold”.

She won a BAFTA and secured Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for her delusional Jean Harlow-like dance marathon participant in the grueling Depression-era film “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?”_(1969). Always one to pursue challengingly offbeat roles as opposed to popular mainstream work, several misfires left her clinging to rewarding pay days as Lara, the Man of Steel’s mother in _“Superman” (1978) and its sequel “Superman II” (1980). With very little material to work with in either film, a concurrent career as a fiction writer for children would blossom iin addition to stage directorial work.

Moving into the millennium, she re-engaged with television audiences in two BBC series, “Casualty” and “Holby City.”

At age 67, Susannah showed up once again on film with a delightful cameo role in “The Gigolos” (2006), and seemed ripe for a major comeback, perhaps in a similar vein to the legendary Judi Dench, Maggie Smith and Helen Mirren. Sadly, it was not to be. Diagnosed with bone marrow cancer, the actress died in January 15, 2011, six days after her 72nd birthday. Her film oeuvre is chequered, but nonetheless worth revisiting, beginning with her first major starring role in “The Greengage Summer.”